The shelves are full inside Alpenland Ski and Cycle — a bit of a different situation than in previous months.
“Its a really mixed bag right now. As you can see behind me, we do have a lot of skis, so certainly a lot better than bike season where we were waiting all summer for stuff to arrive,” added Darrian Walker, the marketing and web operations manager at Alpenland.
Specialty items and really popular products are still seeing some challenges, so if you are looking for something specific this season, don’t wait, he said.
“What we have is mostly what we are going to get for a lot of brands, so as we start to run out of stock of things in January and February, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to order them in, so they have really prioritized stocking us now.”
Car dealerships are also still seeing supply chain challenges but some manufacturers are catching up more quickly than others.
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Lethbridge Toyota’s general manager Tim Schipper said overall business has faired pretty well through the pandemic, but that’s meant low inventory on the lot.
“Before the pandemic we would have between 80 to 120 new vehicles in stock. Now we have less than two, so that is a massive difference.”
He added it’s best to plan ahead if you are looking to purchase a new Toyota, as wait times are ranging from a couple of weeks to over a year.
“There’s a lot of latent demand still there — they haven’t been able to fill those holes. Lethbridge Toyota has over 200 people waiting for new cars right now and in Calgary stores and bigger stores you can multiply it by a factor of ten in some cases.”
Shipper said all manufacturers are working hard to close that gap.
“Going ahead into next year, it’s going to be improved for sure, so we are seeing things on the up and up for now,” added Walker.
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